1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to systems and methods of managing profile data for a plurality of personal computers and, more particularly, to systems and methods of grouping personal computer profile data.
2. Background Information
A computer profile includes computer configuration data, such as data that identifies the computer hardware and installed software. The profile may also include other information, such as, for example, associated software license information, performance data, and other user specified data. In a prior system for managing a computer information database that contains computer profile data, a profile group managing server manages the data according to a tree-structured grouping of the computers. The tree structure, which is designated by the system administrator, may, for example, follow the organizational chart of a company, with the top level node, or group, corresponding to the company and lower level nodes, or groups, corresponding to the various branch offices, and so forth. In the example, the computers may be grouped according to IP subnets that correspond to the branch offices. The profile group managing server then manipulates the profile data to produce reports that summarize the attributes of the computers at every group level, with the reports for a given group including the sub-tree that has the group as its root. A user can then utilize the summaries that are of interest. In the example, a user in a particular branch office may be interested only in the information for the computers in that office, and thus, use the reports produced for the branch office group level. However, a user in the company head office may be interested in the information for all of the company computers, and thus, use the reports produced at the company group level. One such computer information database management system is the BelManage system (version 5.1) produced by Belarc, Inc., of Maynard, Mass., which is the Assignee of the current invention.
For certain grouping methods, the prior system uses client software that is configured to explicitly specify the particular groups to which the respective computers are assigned. Thus, client software which is configured for a particular group is installed on each computer that is included in the group. For grouping methods based on Lotus Notes Id, the client software uses the organizational structure of the Lotus Notes e-mail addresses of the primary users. For other grouping methods, the prior system uses client software that is configured for the top level group and a group mapping database table to further map the computers to the various lower-level groups.
The group mapping database table has two fields, namely, a profile value-to-match field that contains values of particular profile data and a group field that identifies the groups into which computers with matching profile data values are to be included. The particular data selected for use as the profile value-to-match depends on possible grouping methods. The grouping method may be based on administrator selected groupings, PC Name, Windows Login, Windows Domain or Workgroup, IP address, and so forth. The profile values-to-match may be, for example, for groupings based on PC Name or Windows Domain the ProfileName or ComputerDomain, respectively. Further, the groupings based on IP subnet may use selected higher order bits of the computer's IP address as the profile value-to-match, and the administrator-selected groupings may use other data included in the profiles as the profile value-to-match.
The profile group managing server determines which group a given computer belongs in by extracting the data of interest from the profile data received from the computer, and consulting the group mapping database table. If the extracted data matches any of the profile value-to-match entries in the table records, the server includes the computer in the group listed in the first record found to contain an exact match. If no matching record is found, the system includes the computer in the topmost group.
In the prior system the administrator changes the group assignment for selected computers either by re-installing properly configured client software on the respective selected computers or, as appropriate, by changing the applicable records in the group mapping database table. When the computers next send their profile data to the profile group managing server, the server manages the data in accordance with the newly defined groups.
While the prior system works well, there is a need for a system with greater flexibility to manage groups in ways that more closely follow the internal organization of a company and/or its computer networks. Accordingly, we have improved the BelManage system as described below.